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Cat's Logs - Week 28

Strong sunshine creates toasty warm patches in your fur which contrast deliciously with the cooler patches.

As the sunshine moves and you shift to follow it, the toasty spots move along you, warming your whole body. This is especially nice in the Summer when nature itself seems to pet me with warm, soft fingers.

Human fingers, on the other hand, turn damp and clammy when the sun heats up.

Make sunshine, not sweat.

Humans say cats make dreadful noises, but you should hear GlennaJo sing.

Minutes ago I was awakened by a shrill off-key rendition of a song about me being an inspiration. Sounds like a really good song, but it needs a change of venue.

As you can imagine, when a deep sleep is interrupted in such a manner, I feel less than inspiring. I told my attendant to go away and leave me alone. She, however, not being anywhere near fluent in cat, exclaimed: "I'll write a column about music!" and ran to the computer.

Music? What music?

Tuesday, July 20, 1999

I'm submitting an article to Human Fancy magazine covering my human training techniques.

The article will center on how I taught GlennaJo to provide daily liver treats.

Rule 1 in any human training effort is to let the human believe he or she is training you.

Rule 2 is that to encourage the desired behavior you probably have to provide something the human wants in return.

Rule 3 is consistency, consistency, consistency. Humans are creatures of habit and respond well to repetitive daily rituals.

Always remember: Humans are intelligent enough to be trainable--no matter what your friends say.

Wednesday, July 21, 1999

Let's look at my recent efforts to train GlennaJo to provide daily liver treats.

Rule 1 and Rule 2 were fulfilled together by allowing GlennaJo to hug me when she gets home every day.

In my attendant's mind she was teaching me to jump on the couch for hugging by providing liver treats--a simple concept I thought she'd never figure out.

I, on the other hand, have to allow her to rub her moisturizery face on my fur, interfering with my personal signature scent.

Hint: Always save one liver treat 'til after you bathe to clear your palate.

Yesterday, we saw how human training Rules 1 and 2 apply to a real life situation.

The importance of Rule 3, consistency, cannot be overemphasized.

While trainable, humans are often extremely slow learners. They rarely speak cat or even understand what you say, and their extra sensory abilities are practically non-existent.

To overcome this gross lack of awareness, you need to send a simple consistent message through very consistent behavior.

Hint: You catch more humans with purring than with nipping.

The Human Training Society has been laboring for decades to influence human mythology to our advantage.

The concept that cats like rituals has been communicated to the human community clearly and consistently by the Society for almost a century. Use this concept to enhance the effectiveness of your training.

Refuse to do anything that resembles your normal behavior until the new skill is learned and consistently demonstrated.

No matter how comfortable and sunny your nap spot, always promptly and cheerfully perform your role in the ritual--as long as the human keeps up her part of the bargain.

And if the human doesn't follow through, perform an alternate ritual ...

like digging in the potted plants.

The human training techniques we've been learning are very powerful and can be applied to a wide variety of situations.

They have been used successfully to teach behavior as diverse as:

Yes, Furginia, even your human is trainable.

Chats
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Squirt
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